Hi all,
I thought I’d stay out of this conversation thread as I can’t really abide another discussion on capitalisation and grammar – HOWEVER, when the conversation turned to bullying I felt that I had to participate.
I have seen many postings over the years that I think are, at the very least, rude – if not stepping over the line towards bullying – I won’t give the precise examples here but they invariably occur around two topics – requests for assistance with ID, and requests for information/assistance regarding birding and birding locations, and generally these postings are from relative newcomers to the list. Oftentimes the replies are helpful and encouraging, but from time-to-time the replies are hostile. Replies to requests for ID suggesting that people have better things to do than substitute for field guides, for example.
I see any forum (and birding-aus is a forum) as a collaborative experience – where people should be able to post a request, or post a reply, without having any fear of being attacked. To be honest, I have tended to adopt the principle that I will post trip reports and other pieces of information, but not engage in the conversations because I don’t want the grief. In fact, I was criticised for posting trip reports recently too, which makes me think that maybe I’ll stop doing that too. I should point out that in my experience, much of the bullying and criticism is offline – which I find worrying as it is covert, and we’ll never know the extent of it.
Paul Dodd Docklands, Victoria
